Acceptance, Positivity, Compassion — most self-help literature talks about these things as if we can turn them on by flicking a switch. Noooo. These are actually skills that develop through years of deliberate, conscious practice. Like learning how to play a musical instrument. The same goes for love.
And if that’s the case, it begs a powerful and important question — How can I learn to love more deeply?
Over the last year or so, love has been the central theme of all my explorations. I’ve been on a mission to cultivate more love in my life — to heal, to deepen my relationships, and to evolve. One of the powerful tools that I’ve come across on this journey has been Metta Contemplation (also referred to as loving-kindness meditation).
Tasshin’s Vibetrait by Silvia (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
What is Metta?
When I first came across Metta contemplation, it seemed very… woo? wishy-washy? I looked it up on youtube, and it basically involved cultivating loving emotions towards yourself and others through statements like “may you be happy”.
I was like — “Yeah, this doesn’t really look like meditation, seems forced and artificial”
It did not fit my preconceived notions of what “meditation” should be like. So I dismissed it. A few months later, I saw John Vervaeke discuss Metta in his brilliant lecture series. And it woke me up to what Metta is actually about.
Dr. Vervaeke offers an existential interpretation of Metta. He says love is not an emotion or feeling, it’s an existential mode. It’s a way of being. It’s a way of knowing and being known. It’s a commitment to a way of life with someone. The same goes for kindness. It’s not an emotion, it’s a virtue. Virtue means having power, a capacity for something.
And the end goal of Metta is not to generate positive emotions. Rather the positive emotions are a method through which we get that “existential stance” of loving-kindness. This existential stance opens us up — to love, to learning, to transformation.
Dr. Vervaeke also explains how Metta enables a holistic spiritual practice. While “meditation” is the act of deeply looking inward, contemplation (Metta) is the act of deeply looking outward. And both of them need to go hand in hand.
If you’re curious to hear more of what he has to say and get a taste of Metta, here’s the lesson video where Dr. Vervaeke first explains what Metta is about (30 mins) and then guides a session (20 mins) — Meditating with John Vervaeke
Healing through Metta
In your Metta practice, often the first person towards whom you offer loving-kindness is yourself. Initially, a lot of people find it a bit awkward. Thanks to our conditioning, we have all accumulated quite a bit of resistance to self-love (even though we may propositionally believe that it’s a valuable idea). You won’t even realize the extent of that resistance until you try to explicitly express love to yourself.
Anyway, if you persist, Metta contemplation facilitates the development of the orientation of self-compassion which helps you —
- Extend kindness to yourself in times of perceived inadequacy or suffering rather than harsh judgment
- See your experiences as part of the larger human experience rather than seeing them as separate and isolating
- Hold your painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness rather than over-identifying with them
Also, when you cultivate that internal space of loving-kindness… when you slowly dissolve shame and guilt… the parts of you that have been suppressed or split-off start feeling safe to come out and open up, making integration and healing possible.
I guess this is how MDMA acts as well (when used for healing) — creates a high degree of emotional safety, making it easier to access and process painful memories.
Metta for Relationships
Our relationships are the biggest source of our suffering. Sartre remarked that “Hell is other people”. But so is heaven! We can significantly improve the quality of our lives by changing how we show up in our relationships.
Being present, kind, non-judgmental, and accepting — again, we propositionally know the importance of these things. But to increasingly embody those traits and act from that place of love — that’s what Metta enables.
I’ve experienced that when you habitually practice offering love towards the people in your life, that love starts coming to the surface in your interactions with those people. And Metta not only changes how you interact with others, but it also changes the way people interact with you.
In one of his tweets, Tasshin Fogleman remarked — “metta changes the way you perceive [others], which changes the way you behave [around others], which changes the way others perceive you, which changes the way others behave around you”
(Tasshin’s embodiment of Metta has been a lively source of inspiration for me to persist with my practice. Here’s a beautiful read from his blog on the topic of Metta — Practicing Love)
Integrating Metta into our Lives
If Metta feels like something you’d love to experiment with, Dr. Vervaeke’s lesson I mentioned earlier is a good place to start. But his lesson is a bit grounded in theory and structure. So after going through it, I’d recommend checking out this Guided Metta Meditation by Ajahn Brahm. It’s a different flavor of metta — very visceral and visual.
Once you have a basic sense of the technique, feel free to play around with it and find your own bliss. Don’t coerce yourself into feeling a certain way. There are no hard rules and cultivating love should never feel like a chore. Get creative, try a bunch of things (sentences/images), and find what resonates in your heart. You’ll feel a slight sensation in your chest when something hits just right. Relevant excerpt from Tasshin’s article —
When you use mental talk or mental image, it will often cause an embodied reaction, like a smile or a pleasant feeling in the heart area. That’s what you’re aiming for: an embodied, positive reaction.
If and when these positive feelings arise, you can use them as a focus space, in the same way that you might with the breath or a mantra. You just stay there, feeling the feelings of love, compassion, and joy. If you get distracted, you gently return to those positive feelings.
Feeling these positive feelings can take some time. When you’re starting out, it may be solely mental, with images and talk, without very much happening in your body. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It can take time for these feelings to really take off in the body.
Again, think of it as similar to learning a musical instrument. Initially, you may feel like you’re going nowhere. But slowly, you start getting the hang of it and even start enjoying it. And just like you have an innate sense of rhythm that guides you when playing music, you also have an innate sense of love that will guide your practice.
Enjoy the journey. Sending you metta.
P.S. Since we are on the topic of love, here’s a book that has had a deep influence on me — The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
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